_The Commonwealth_ was established in the interest of the faction opposed to McKean, and its attacks on him and his supporter, the _Tree of Liberty_, were brutal. Israel came in for the most violent abuse. Pentland accused Israel of being ignorant. “Let a beardless boy instruct you, old goat!” was one of his coarse thrusts. In the same article he designated Israel as “the man with the long beard, but no brains,” and concluded crudely, “Let a goslin’ instruct you, old goose!”[235] The campaign teemed with personalities. The Federalists looked on in amusement, but finally came to the support of McKean, and he was elected. Pentland’s chagrin knew no bounds, and after the election was over, he continued to attack the _Tree of Liberty_, the management of which, by this time had changed. He vented his spite on the supposed owners. He charged that, although the newspaper was published in the name of Walter Forward, Tarleton Bates and Henry Baldwin,[236] the two most prominent politicians in Pittsburgh, were the real proprietors, and that Bates was the editor. Baldwin, who was not quite twenty-six years of age, later in life became a member of Congress and a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Forward was a young man of nineteen, a law student in Baldwin’s office, and subsequently attained high political distinction. He was several times a member of Congress, was Secretary of the Treasury under President Tyler, _chargé-d’-affaires_ to Denmark, under President Taylor, and president judge of the District Court of Allegheny County. Bates was the oldest and best known of the three men. His tragic end has caused a halo of romance to be cast about his striking personality. He was a native of Virginia, where he was born on May 22, 1775. He was of Quaker origin, his father having lost his membership in the Society of Friends because of his services as a volunteer at the siege of Yorktown. The family seat was Belmont in Goochland County. Tarleton Bates came to Pittsburgh when eighteen years of age. During the early years of his residence he was employed by the national government in the Quarter Master’s Department under Major Isaac Craig, the Deputy Quarter Master and Military Storekeeper at Pittsburgh, with whom for a time he made his home. When the Spaniards surrendered their rights to the country on the lower Mississippi in 1798, and the Mississippi Territory was organized with Natchez as the capital, Bates determined to leave Pittsburgh and settle in the southern town, but did not carry his design into execution.[237] Upon the appointment of John C. Gilkison to the office of prothonotary, he became a clerk under him.